The Economist Asia Edition – July 27, 2019

26 United States The EconomistJuly 27th 2019

2

1

Democratic side will be winnowed down to

a more manageable number. Yet although

candidates have already started dropping

out, their reasons for doing so do not sug-

gest a process that is working well.

Eric Swalwell, a congressman, suspend-

ed his campaign because he was spending

so much money on fundraising to pull in

enough individual donors to qualify for the

debates. In one month, “we spent $110,000-

ish to get $100,000. So it’s like you’re like

spending money to get less money just to

meet a threshold,” Mr Swalwell said after

dropping out of the race. He may be no

great loss. But if Democrats lose Mr Bullock

or Michael Bennet, an impressive centrist

senator from Colorado, in the next round of

winnowing, they may find they lose candi-

dates with a good chance of beating Mr

Trump months before the first actual prim-

ary takes place, in February 2020.

Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Insti-

tution, a think-tank, and author of “Prim-

ary Politics: Everything You Need to Know

about How America Nominates Its Presi-

dential Candidates”, believes this system

makes it far too easy for parties to be hi-

jacked by outsiders. “No other political

process in the modern world”, Ms Kamarck

writes, “has so abandoned this critical vet-

ting function of the political party in the

nominating process.” A system of peer re-

view by elected officeholders before candi-

dates were put before primary voters

would, she argues, work better.

What would this look like in practice?

Ms Kamarck presents three possible sol-

utions. First, both parties could increase

the role that superdelegates—convention

delegates who can vote whichever way they

please—play in the process. Currently Re-

publicans do not use superdelegates in

their selection process, and Democrats

have recently cut their power. Second, par-

ties might consider a national convention

to endorse a limited number of candidates

before the choice between them is present-

ed to the voters. The third option would be

to let a party’s members of Congress pre-

senta slateofendorsedcandidatestoprim-

aryvoters.JuliaAzari,anassociateprofes-

sor of political science at Marquette

University,saysthattheidealsystemprob-

ablyliessomewherebetweenthebrokered

conventionsofthe1960s andthenearly

fullydemocratisedsystemoftoday.

Itistoolateforreformerstoaffectthe

systemthatwillbeusedin2020,butitis

notunimaginablethattheymaydosolater

on.Bothpartiesalreadyenactrestrictions

onwhomayrun,andeventheconstitution

includes some anti-democratic require-

ments,suchastheneedtobe 35 yearsor

oldertorunforpresident.Norisitabnor-

malforthepartiestoexercisea heavyhand

intheirnominationprocesses.Inthe 2008

primary,forexample,theDemocraticNa-

tionalCommitteevotedtostripMichigan

andFloridaofalltheirpledgeddelegates

aftertheyscheduledtheirprimaryelec-

tionsearlier in theyearthan originally

agreed.Therulescommitteesofthetwo

partiesstillhavethepowerandflexibility

toreforma systemthatisfailingtowork.

Theyshoulduseit. 7

Too many cooks

Sources:“TheMakingofthePresidential

Candidates2012”,byW.Mayerand

J. Bernstein; news reports

*Includingthosethat

droppedoutbefore

the first primaries

United States, number of candidates

in presidential primary*

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1952 60 68 76 84 92 2000 08 20

Democrats

Republicans

F

or two years, Robert Mueller has

loomed over American politics, nearly

unseen and largely silent. Mr Mueller, who

was appointed to investigate Russian in-

terference in the 2016 presidential elec-

tion, after President Donald Trump sacked

James Comey, the then-fbi director, stayed

silent throughout the 22-month inquiry. In

March, after indicting 34 people, executing

500 searches and issuing 2,800 subpoenas,

his office submitted a 448-page report

summarising its findings and then closed.

Mr Mueller gave brief public remarks after

the report’s release, stating that it would be

inappropriate for him to testify before Con-

gress because “the report is my testimony”.

Despite that admonishment, on July 24th,

Mr Mueller was hauled before two commit-

tees of the House of Representatives,

which is controlled by the Democrats, and

made to testify for six hours. He did not de-

viate much from his pledge.

Democrats were hoping Mr Mueller

would recount the president’s misdeeds in

clear, shareable sound bites that would in-

terest the voting public again after the mut-

ed reception of the report. Although close

associates of the president were charged

with crimes over the course of the investi-

gation, the report did not turn up proof of a

conspiracy with Russia. The second half of

the report detailed repeated efforts by the

president to derail the investigation, in-

cluding by trying to sack Jeff Sessions, the

attorney-general at the time, so that Mr

Mueller could be reined in. Because of an

existing legal opinion stating that a sitting

president cannot be indicted, the report

did not reach a judgment on whether Mr

Trump should be prosecuted for obstruc-

tion of justice. The final sentence of the re-

port notes that “while this report does not

conclude that the president committed a

crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

A hefty minority of the party hankering

after impeachment, against the wishes of

the Democratic leadership, had hoped to

bolster their stalled case. They repeated the

most damning excerpts of the report—es-

pecially one in which the president

slumped in chair and said “Oh my God.

This is terrible. This is the end of my presi-

dency”—hoping that the former special

counsel would chime in and help them

along. But Mr Mueller, who stammered,

asked for questions to be repeated and an-

WASHINGTON, DC

Impeachment looks even less likely

now than it did before his testimony

The Russia investigation

Thus spake

Mueller

I refer you to what is written in the report